How Many Pianos?

If you have ever had to take a statistics class you may not want to read any further. This blog is all about numbers. Personal Property was taxed in Lawrence County for the year 1902 and the chart at the bottom was published in the paper. It tells the number of horses, cattle, mules, sheep, and hogs as well as other personal property in the county. (Apparently, chickens were either too numerous or too hard to count.)

I found it interesting that before cars were common there were 5814 horses and 807 mules in the county used for work and pleasure. The number of horses had decreased from the year before, but the number of mules had increased.

Hogs outnumbered sheep which had declined from the year before. The number of hogs stayed about the same.

Before the oil boom, all the diamonds and jewelry of the entire county were only valued at $175 and all of those were found in Lawrence Township. However, Ladies, what you didn’t possess by way of jewelry you made up for with sewing machines. There were 1578 sewing or knitting machines taxed.

There were only 159 pianos in the county but 598 organs with Lukin leading the way in being the least musically- inclined. Don’t worry Lukinites, you had more dogs that the other townships. . .almost double. The county as a whole claimed 1172 dogs. (There were probably a lot more that weren’t claimed.)

In addition, there were 59 steam engines, 40 burglar- proof safe valued at $2,495, and one billiard table worth $25 in Bridgeport township.

1,592 watches and clocks were taxed. The population in 1900 for Lawrence County was 16,523, so one in ten people had a watch or clock.

And I am sure people complained about paying taxes the same way they do today.